1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hand-held electronic devices. More specifically the present invention relates to a communications technique for facilitating data transfer between a hand-held device and a station.
2. The Prior Art
Prior art related to the invention that is currently on the market comprises the software aspect of networking and resource discovery. For example, International Business Machine's TSpaces is an attempt to provide developers with a Java-based distributed-object architecture including a development platform, processing environment, and addressing mechanism. Also, WBI, or Web Intermediaries, addresses the concept of transcoding. WBI intermediaries are computational entities that can be positioned anywhere along the HTTP stream and are programmed to tailor, customize, personalize, or otherwise enhance data as they flow along the stream. A caching web proxy is a simple example of an HTTP intermediary. Intermediary-based programming is particularly useful for adding functionality to a system when the data producer (e.g., server or database) or the data consumer (e.g., browser) cannot be modified. In addition to the preceding, a corporation called Pacific Neo-Tek makes software to modulate optical communication to convert a Palm Pilot into a remote control for televisions. These products are available either through a subscription or through outright purchase of its software.
Further, many hand-held computing devices are emerging as invaluable configurations particularly useful for organizing and storing user input information. Some of those configurations are known as personal data assistance or personal digital assistant (PDA) devices. In general, PDA's are compact, streamlined, user input and user interface devices possessing a modest footprint which facilitates mobility and ease of storage. As such, PDA's have been vying with, and proven beneficial as alternatives to, desktop and personal computers (PC's).
Many PDA's are even beginning to communicate with networks and other computing systems in order to remotely control equipment, share information and programs. Applications include receiving and sending email, synchronizing appointment calendars, address lists, memos, price lists, client records, and other business and private data. Typically, the physical layer of communication have been devices such as serial port interfaces, phone modems, optical (IR) and radio frequency (RF) and other similar devices useful in transferring data.
This transfer, however, has involved compromise. For example, some PDA's require the use of a phone modem that attaches to the PDA, increasing the weight and size, and requires a cable to connect to a phone receptacle. Further, wired connection is inconvenient in public settings (restaurants, retail stores), travel (airports, train stations) and in vehicles (airplanes, cars, buses, trains). Radio frequency modems are expensive, often not allowed to operate in airplanes and hospitals, and are regulated by laws that vary by country.
Many PDAs, for example 3 COM's Palm Pilot and Windows CE based devices, currently exchange information by an IR port, according to the widely adopted standard for inter-device communication specified by IRDA (Optical Data Association). There are over 150 million devices with IRDA ports installed, including laptops, mobile phones, PDAs, and printers. FIG. 1 illustrates a PDA (102) communicating via a phone modem (104) to a remote computer (106), and as a wireless alternative a PDA (108) communicating via a built-in IR transceiver (110) with another PDA (112) with built-in IR transceiver (113) over an optical path (111), a PC (114) with built-in IR transceiver (115), and a laptop (116) with built in IR transceivers (117). Although IRDA is useful, it is not without its shortcomings. For example, IRDA limits communication to short ranges, typically within 1 meter. IRDA also does not teach multicast communication between a plurality of devices. In addition, the optical protocols are application and device specific, making it difficult to communicate between heterogeneous devices and applications.
Accordingly, it is desirable to extend the range of optical data communication, and heterogeneous devices and application to control equipment, share data and exchange programs (code). With such a large installed base of IRDA devices, it is desirable to implement the extended range and heterogeneous communication without altering the hardware of the devices.